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Re: New Power: Desolidification Very interesting. I like the concept and think it is an improvement, just a couple of quibbles with the costs. The first being that "Desolidification, All but Single SFx, Can pass through solid objects, Character is unable to affect the real world with STR and Powers" has an Active cost of 200 and a real cost of 67-ish. This is the way I would build Desolidification as it is in 5ER (no book here, mind you) which normally costs 40. Costs change when rules change, and I can accept that, but this seems a larger change than it needs to be. I'd make Group of Common worth the same as Single Very Common. That's supported by other rules (ex. Vulnerability). Also, I wouldn't ramp the costs up so quickly except for the last couple of steps. I'd still top out at 120 at the very least. At that level it is basically absolute invulnerability, which means much playtesting and a big ol Stop sign on it. This set confuses me: Is that a '(Group of Common) & Very Common SFX', or a 'Group of (Common & Very Common)' SFX? Is a Single Very Common SFX worth the same as a Single Uncommon SFX? What about a Group of Uncommon? I'm not sure about the -3 and -4 levels on the Restricted Interaction limitation. They seem like they would seldom be used (if ever), and lack of perception should be handled by another limitation in my opinion. (Again, I don't have my book here, so this might be a part of existing Desolid and I just don't know it.) That's about it. Again, I like it. I think it's an improvement over the existing power, but I'd tinker with the costs.

Re: Would you allow... Yes.

I don't feel any less wise... I had my wisdom teeth removed this morning. First time I've had surgery since I was a kid. Over the last few days the internal worry monologue has been getting a workout. Which sucks, because it never brings up any valid concerns, just paranoia. Every time it got to a dull roar, I fought it out of my head and asked for peace. They escort me into the operating room. I went with the general anesthetic, because being conscious and 'numb' for this didn't strike me a fun. They start by strapping me down to the table because they claim sleeping people tend to roll over, but it just starts to make me feel claustraphobic and anxious. Cue worry, back in force. Then they wheeled over the IV. God, I hate needles. Haven't given blood, even though I'd like to, because of that. Somehow, I didn't go into a panic attack, mostly thanks to the excellent staff there. The good news is that the procedure went without any known hitches (Yes, I've had a surprise hitch in the past...that's a pretty funny story actually), and the pain has already lessened to very tolerable levels. I really want a sandwich, tough. Quickie musing, unrelated,not so random: I only hope for there be a resolution soon. Please.

Re: Help: Time Villains First of all, thanks to everyone who contributed to the thread. I appreciate you sharing your opinions. They've helped me make some informal decisions. I own Champions Presents and really like the Menace out of Time adventure, and was tempted to just use those rules carte blanche, but something about their rigidity bothered me when I started working up this villain. Part of the fun of the Comic Book genre is the flexibility in story telling, and all the "you cannot" stuff doesn't lend itself to that. The primary, long term, reason for the existence of this character is to (along with the PCs) resolve a mysterious event in the campaign world history. The character must be able to travel to the past for this to work. So, travel along the time-stream in each direction is possible. This was a given, based on my plans for the future of my game. A few rules I've decided to use: - Time travel takes a great deal of force/energy to accomplish. The further along the time stream you want to go, the more energy it will take. The expenditure (and the resulting residue) is easily detectable as an occurrance of time travel with the proper senses/equipment. - Changes to the time-stream are possible, but major ones are extremely difficult. However, any type of change will likely result in unintended consequneces. Any attempt at major change in the time-line will absolutely result in a cascade of unexpected moderate and minor changes. (ie. You can kill Hitler before he rises to power, but it is likely that someone will take his place and WWII and some kind of Holocaust will still happen, but not anything near to what you remember). - You can visit a time period more than once, but doing so can be a very, very, bad idea. To begin with, every time you return you risk seriously altering the events of your previous incursions, affecting your own past and causing paradox (and possibly insanity). Worse, if, by chance, you happen upon a previous incursion serious personal and/or temporal damage can happen (temporal rifts, death, etc.). - PCs who wish to time travel will be forced to suffer my stern GM Glare of Ultimate Scrutiny. - All these rules are in place, except when they are not. I think that'll do, for now. The only addition I might make is the "nature abhors the time traveler" rule from Menace. Now, for the next part. Building the character. I'd rather he not be a typical obsessive perfectionist or master villain. I'm not big on cliche. I liked the time travelling thief from JLU. He was vulnerable, but resourceful. I'd like a touch of tragedy as well. I have ideas, but I'm looking for second opinions. Here, mull these over, please: Suppose a Joker-like villain with time-travelling powers. He suffered tremendous paradox and went all sociopath-y. The Clown Prince of Time. How does that strike you as a GM? (As a player?) What kind of plot seeds does it inspire? Would you want that character in your game? Something a little less whimsical/scary. The character from the semi-near future goes back in time and does something small, that changes the time-line. When they return, they find their spouse and children never existed. They are trying desperately to fix the mistake without causing a paradox. How does that play? Can you plumb that motivation effectively? How do you think a female character would be considerably different than a male in this case? Another character. This character gets trapped outside the time-line in an accident. They can briefly interact with the time-line, and, each instance when they do, they try desperately to solve their problem, without any care for the consequences and can create mass problems. Interactions with the timeline will not be linear, so they could know the heroes before the heroes know them. What would you do with that? That's all I got for now. Thanks again!

Howdy, Champions assembled! I'm getting ready to start Year Two of my Champs campaign, and I find myself in need of the strength of your collective experience. Here's the deal, I've got this sub plot that I've begun tossing seeds out about and would like to resolve sometime in the next year or two. The problem is that in order to resolve it then, I need to introduce a new villain to the Justice Force Rogue's Gallery now. So, to get the juices flowing, I'm looking for ideas about time traveling and/or time manipulating villains. How do you limit your time villains? Do you establish rules about time travel ahead of time? What kind of rules have you used? What keeps the thief from going back to steal the artifact again and again? What keeps the conqueror from going back to adjust his strategy again and again? What kind of personalities have you given your time villains? Are they megalomaniacs? Cool amoralists? Kooks? What kind of motivations have you given them? Thanks in advance!

Re: Could your Champions character beat... You should see his write-up for Aunt May. The old girl hangs with Mary Lou Retton on the un-even bars.

Re: Could your Champions character beat...

Re: Stat Increase = Skill Increase? IDHMBIFOM* so I cannot answer your question, though I can assure you that it is true. However, I'm a bit surprised by your assertion. I mean, Dungeons and Dragons, the most popular RPG in the world, does this. What RPGs do you normally play? Why do you find it unwieldy? If a man grows stronger, his ability to perform strength related feats should increase, shouldn't it? *I Don't Have My Book In Front Of Me

Re: Deathstroke Oh thank god. A thread with Deathstroke fanboyism, Cap vs. Bats, and bickering over write-ups. Damn. How have we lived without having this little piece of joy brought back to life sooner? Hoo-ray for thread necromancy.

Re: No love for bases?

Re: No love for bases? Gah! How'd I miss that!? I've read this book! mutter grumble Well, very cool. That makes my life easier. Thanks MitchellS!

So I'm putting together a little (very small) Bat-Cave for a PC in my campaign. It's hidden and underground and very much suits his needs. I've never built a base like this before, and I hardly ever build bases anyway. So, I thought I'd look over some examples and see what inspiration I could glean. Ok, so Champions has Homestead, and UNTIL has both deep sea and deep space bases and... that's it? There has got to be a sample nest written up in Viper, right? hmmmmmmm... nope. Damn it! Is there an official write up of a hidden (underground or otherwise) base somewhere that I've missed? Otherwise, share your base write ups! Please! I'll post mine when I get it done. Thanks.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Teamwork That's the way I've always played it. Did I miss a rule change?

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER I don't know about "practical" or "feasible". It would be "frustrating" for some, at the very least, and, for people like me, it would be "hilarious". Just imagine: Leftist posts horribly biased article. Righty tries to respond, but is modded by Leftist thread starter. So Righty starts his own thread which he is mod of to respond to Leftist's thread. The problem blooms, everyone is posting and responding to their own threads. Then Mightybec starts a thread...sanity is lost by all.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I'm sure I'm going to regret this, but... I, Jonathan Bodey, a natural-born citizen of the United States, just wresteld with my 8 month old daughter to put antibiotics in her eyes. She's probably going to need surgery to clear the tear ducts. They say it's routine, but that doesn't matter when you're her Dad. The only thing I care about is her safety over this one trivial little thing. There are millions like me, caring about their little lives and wondering what all the raging noise is about. My point is this: I don't give a rat's ass if you are "Lib'rul" or "Neocon". The truth of the matter is that lately you've all* been unreasonable ideological fcuktards from the party leaders right down to rank and file. You all have forgotten basic decency and the 'don't be an asshole' rule and occasionally just how to shut the hell up. There doesn't seem to be a place we can go without you folks raising a din where a murmur would do. This is the Hero Games forums. Posting anything other than rules questions is a priviege, not a right. You may have Freedom of Speech at all times, but this company doesn't have to let you be heard here, but they do, and you guys all sure do a bang-up job of respecting that every single da---cough---Sorry, had a little sarcasm in my throat. You want to be a bunch of assholes, go to Dailykos and Free Republic and spew there. Otherwise, do all the rest of us here a favor and close your sphincters for a while. The world won't fall apart if you do, and it'll sure smell better. And that would be my 'random' musing. Hey, is that pie? * Ok, "you've all" is a little strong. In retrospect I should have said something like "a sizeable number of you have" or "too god damn many of you have been". Mea maxima culpa.

Re: Please Critique She looks fine for a villain. I allow villains to have a lot of quirks that I'd never let a PC slide with. Certain overly weakened defenses, weird psych lims are fine for an NPC sheet where things can be changed to suit your needs. A few comments: 1. According to the background, she's part of a strike team working in South America. I see you've put in some skills to reflect that, but there are several others of note missing. 1 and 2 pt skills with the languages native to that part of the world. At least Spanish. A familiarity with Demolitions. Figure out why she was on the team besides kicking ass and shooting, did she have any other strengths? (Was she the Tactical Genius? The Scrounger? The Burly Mechanical Whiz? The Crazy Pilot?) Being part of a strike team means she also had access to equipment. At the very least, if she needs it, she should be able to acquire some simple flak armor, and have a side arm. A high powered sniper scope would come in handy as well considering most of her powers are LOS. 2. Her powers are pretty straight forward. If I were building her I would make the Drain BOECV as well as Ranged so it acts like everything else. Actually, I'd change the Drain to a Suppress which is automatically Ranged, half the cost, and make it BOECV, but that's just me. 3. Characteristics. The only issue I have is the EGO, which is her primary stat. I'd either knock it up one or down one. Up one, your ECV goes up one and costs you two points. Down one, nothing changes and you save a couple of points. I mean, she's a villain, and points don't matter, but my Goodman senses are blaring at me every time I look at that. 4. Disads. Everything is fine except for (and you know what's coming) Fear of Color Yellow: Common, Strong. Captain Sunshine is going to kick her ass. Is there an actual rationalization here, or were you just fishing for points? If it's the former, I really want to hear it. Really. Really. However, if it's the latter, I can help with that. First, her two Hunteds say she has a Public ID, but she hasn't purchased the Social Lim for it. Then, build more of a personality than just Power Hungry and Protective of Teammates. If you are having trouble go here. Lots of ideas there.

Re: Teleportation, really that different? Yep. My original point. Nope' date=' never wondered in the least. I just wondered why people hadn't raised much of a stink over this. Maybe everyone else but me saw the validity, but that's been proven false. I mean, Damage Shield is [i']tame[/i] by comparison.

Re: Teleportation, really that different? Alright, how does this question on UAA and Steve's answer factor into the original discussion? I think I just got more confused. ---------- As for the tangent, well this is where an actual discussion of the benefits and limitations of each type of movement would be handy. HERO was originally designed for Supers, so it would make sense in the genre that Flight would be relatively cheap. Teleport was made a little more expensive, depending on what the character was trying to do with it. Now that HERO is more a Universal Toolkit than just Champions the Super! Roleplaying Game, does Flight's Turn Mode balance with Running's ground movement balance with Teleports lack of velocity?

Re: Teleportation, really that different?

Re: Teleportation, really that different? It already does. What I don't see is any valid reason for it to cost more than twice as much per inch in all circumstances to sometimes take someone else involuntarily along.

Re: Teleportation, really that different? I apologize. As I said, you have me frustrated. I think that's because we're arguing our stances differently. I'm arguing from 'It does' and you are arguing from 'It could'. So, it never feels like you really address any of my points. We're writing the same language, but we really aren't having a discussion.

Re: Teleportation, really that different? Wholly irrelevant in HERO. Teleport is an effect for a power that can be described a myriad of ways. It can duplicate Star Trek Transporters and moving so fast that people can't see you. There is no set defined effect on the character's body. None. A who to the what now? Validate this statement. Prove to me that in every character's possible interpretation of Teleport that moving an involuntary target along with you is akin to an AVLD vs. Power Defense.

Re: Teleportation, really that different? Alright, Mike, you have me frustrated. I don't think you actually do me the honor of actually reading my posts, you just skim them and, once you think you understand, you respond. It's causing problems. Like this one: Both I and Dust Raven know it says nothing about having to Grab. In fact, I think we would gladly cede that point. According to the rules in 5ER you just have to touch. No Grab. None. OK? Does that work for you? Before I move on I want to be sure this point is clear: 5ER does not require a Grab. It requires a touch, possibly a Zero Phase touch, and UAA to take someone involuntarily. I am in no way attempting to interpret the rules on p234 as requiring a Grab. Ever. I do not read the rules that way. However, I think this rule that Steve has written is crap. I think it is unfairly penalizing Teleport. I am working on a solution that will make myself and my game happy. THAT'S IT. No on to the rest of your points...

Teleportation, really that different? redeux Yes, that is how it works according to the 5ER rules, and if, in fact, a player wanted their character to have the ability to reach out and touch someone casually and teleport away with them, no matter how they felt about it, I would consider that a valid use of the UAA Advantage. I have, in fact, written as much previously: The Advantage makes sense if you are just touching as a Zero Phase Action and teleporting your target (and possibly yourself) away. That's using Teleport as an attack and is textbook UAA. However, when I capitalized Grab in the quoted paragraph it wasn't because I have a penchant for random capitalization. I was referencing the attack maneuver Grab. The point I was trying to make was that if I build a character with 23" of Flight, they can successfully perform a Grab on someone and, willing or not, carry them along on their next Phase, but my friend's character with 23" of Teleport is unable to do that without an Advantage. Which is utter bunk, and thus far has not been supported by anyone as being the least bit balanced. Grab is the attack. Teleport is just movement, and it should be allowed to work just like all the other Movement powers. Was that better?